


Fond

by misbehavingvigilante



Category: Leverage
Genre: Character Study, Multi, Post-Season/Series 02, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 09:37:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15116693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misbehavingvigilante/pseuds/misbehavingvigilante
Summary: “Yes?” Parker feels like there’s a trick question here. “I like Eliot?”“Hmm, I would have thought Hardison.”“I like Hardison, too.”





	Fond

**Author's Note:**

> Man, it's been a while since I wrote anything about leverage. Probably has something to do with Netflix removing it from their roster, ugh. 
> 
> Anyways, this was based off that moment in the finale of season 2 where it really seemed like Parker was going to kill Tara. I had always wanted to write a scene exploring that moment thus this happened and kinda spiraled out of control into maybe the formation of how the ot3 started to come together. 
> 
> This is both tonally over the place, and has a switching of tenses that I tried to amend before just getting frustrated and decided to leave as is. I liked the piece enough to post so here we go.

She had gone in for the kill.

It had made sense at the time, Tara had gone from stranger to friend in the matter of weeks only to turn enemy. Parker didn’t let emotions get in the way, so nothing stopped her from seizing Tara's throat and threatening her over the edge of the rooftop.

She was a threat, and if she lived, then she would endanger all of them. It probably wasn’t necessarily the right call. Sophie certainly wouldn’t have made it but Sophie wasn’t here. Sophie would have never let it got to this point in the first place, she was like a safeguard, standing in the way of Nate and his poorly hatched plans without her, it really wasn’t a surprise what happened was it? Sophie didn’t mean to her what she clearly meant to Nate but Parker still mourned her absence though she more than anyone understood how sometimes you need time alone and away. Sometimes people were suffocating and you need the stillness of something else.

Some people needed others, Parker thought. Maybe that’s what drew her back to this team time and time again.

Would Nate make the call? As pragmatic as he could be, he had been so earnest in the beginning about being an honest man, it was hard to think he’d do something that intentionally resulted in someone’s death. On the other hand, pragmatism could lead to the acceptance of causalities very easily particularly with the hook of success on the line. Nate did like winning, more than he wanted to admit.

Hardison definitely wouldn’t have. He was nice, and nice in the nice way, not nice in the way people use to mask their intentions like a grifter might, or nice in the way someone who understood the complexities of social interaction and used that like a weapon to trap people in them. More than that, maybe it was Hardison was good and moral like many of the people they helped. Just also a thief, so in the way, Parker could at least somewhat relate to him rather know nothing of how normal people acted. Sometimes they still seemed too different, and though Hardison did his best to accommodate her, it felt like sometimes she asked too much and it just reminded her that she was abnormal and broken somehow.

And then there was Eliot. Most of them knew what his past had entailed, and knew he had sworn off killing after an indeterminate point. None of them really knew the catalyst and Eliot wasn’t especially keen on sharing details from his past. He had a colorful past one that sort of entranced Parker in a way she knew it shouldn’t, asking about such things was wrong because it usually hurt people. Sophie had taught her to be more aware of other people’s feelings when it comes to interacting with them, that even if she didn’t understand them. He had killed. But would he kill for the team? Would he cross that line for them? Would the thought have crossed his mind at all or had he disavowed such things?

Parker sighed. In the wake of what Nate had done, it left them all reeling and feeling played. Perhaps it was unavoidable on a team full of thieves but that didn’t mean it felt especially good.

Sophie had been affected worst, and Parker hadn’t known what to say. She had hugged Sophie earlier and it felt natural and right but by her stiff posture and smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes Parker had left her alone instead. She hadn’t wanted to make things worse so she retreated.

Hardison probably wanted to be comforted right now and Parker did want to see him. There was something reassuring about his presence at the end of the day, something somewhat different than the rest of the team but she hadn’t really given it a lot of thought yet. With the memory in mind of what she’d nearly done, and since Tara apparently hadn’t revealed that piece of information to the team, thankfully.

Or was she thankful? Parker wasn’t sure. Maybe it would have been better if Tara had revealed her almost decision, maybe it would have been fixed by being brought up. It’s not as if they could throw her off the team for entertaining murder, when Eliot was on it.

Eliot.

Eliot could fix things, or maybe he could at least understand. Was it wrong of her to reach out in this moment to him? To remind him of things he didn’t exactly want to be reminded of? Would Sophie have encouraged her to do this?

Despite those thoughts, she was successful in her mission of locating Eliot. Not that he was really hiding to begin with, but it’s still a job done in her book.

“I didn’t expect you.”  He had said but not in the way he sometimes does like she is a puzzle, he can’t even begin to unravel. He hasn’t made as many comments lately about something being off with her.

That seems like a good sign to Parker. It feels like they might step backwards if she goes through with this.

But what’s one more social blunder after a lifetime of them?

“I thought about killing Tara.” Parker confessed, straight and to the point because small talk is something she struggled with more than gauging what is and isn’t appropriate. “I thought she betrayed the team, and then I didn’t know how much of a threat she was and it seemed like the right thing to do at the time?”

Parker has a habit of either staring too much or too little at people like a pendulum in swing, this time she stared at Eliot rather than away. Sophie has been teaching her about facial expressions and how Eliot might react might inform her more of how he feels than what he says.

Eliot gets a tight look around his eyes, his mouth opens and shuts without comment. It looks like a bad reaction, and Parker doesn’t know how to make it better. She doesn’t like hurting people, she knows that much. So she switched tactics, Eliot has always found her odd maybe, maybe… “I mean…” Parker gives him a too wide smile and outstretches her arms in a posture she thinks suggests flippancy. “I was joking?”

She doesn’t often get jokes, laughs at things that aren’t jokes and doesn’t laugh at things that are so the idea of a joke falling flat and way off mark shouldn’t be too much of a reach for Eliot to believe.

Nate isn’t the only one who knows how manipulate just he’s a master at it and she’s barely an apprentice who can get it together most days.

“No, you’re not.” Eliot speaks, there’s a strained, tight quality to his voice which is how he gets when things veer too closely to the past he does know speak of.  “You shouldn’t do that. Believe me, you don’t want to go down that path.”

There’s something honest and pained about his expression. It kind of makes her want to give him a hug but she doesn’t follow through with the impulse because she’s not quite sure they’re there yet in their relationship.

Parker doesn’t know what to say, so she recycles facts. “Tara is not dead.” Well, not entirely accurate Parker supposes she could have died since they last saw each other but that isn’t very likely. She voices that thought aloud too. “Or at least, she wasn’t when we last saw her?”

“Right.” Eliot agrees, apparently seemingly unsure how to proceed as well. “Are you hungry?”

She’s not really but she’s learnt better than to turn down food. Particularly food by Eliot, Eliot knows how to cook, and it tastes amazing. On occasion, he feeds her, usually in abhorrence of her diet. Hardison also gets the same treatment.

Huh, that’s an interesting commonality she hadn’t really noted before. Or she had, she just brushed it to the side as it hadn’t seemed important.

But Hardison wouldn’t have thoughts like this to begin with, but Eliot does? Or did? So by that logic… “We have more in common than I thought.”

“I guess we do but that wasn’t the answer I was looking for.”

“Oh, yeah.” Parker blinked, she hadn’t forgotten about that per se, it just had slipped down from most important thought to secondary thoughts thus hadn’t held her focus. “I like your food so yes.”

Had she ever complimented Eliot’s food before? Parker couldn’t remember but he seemed to be closer to normal than before the bombshell she had dropped at the very least.

“Then I’ll whip something up.”

“Hardison, too!” Parker chirped. “You like feeding him too.”

“I’m still not convinced both of you won’t fall victim to scurvy. I keep trying to tell Hardison that orange soda is not the same as the actual fruit but he never listens.” Parker knows that tone, that’s the tone Eliot usually specifically when he’s annoyed with Hardison.

Fond exasperation is what Sophie had described it as when she asked trying to wrap her head around the relationship between the both of them.

“You on the other hand make questionable food choices. Some things aren’t meant to go together.” That on the other hand sounds like fond bafflement. Which is weird because Parker thought Eliot only had one fond expression for Hardison, but apparently he was one for her too?

That was something to note.

Did Eliot have one for Nate and Sophie, too? Or was it restricted to just her and Hardison? And if so, why?

But with food on the mind again, she’s now curious to what Eliot will make. His expertise in the kitchen means he’s capable of a myriad of dishes. There’s excitement in the guesswork and she goes through each slither of information of food related information she has of Eliot to try and guess what he’ll make before he’s done.

It’s a fun little game that entertains her and keeps her out of Eliot’s way while he’s working. Eventually she’s sent on fetching duty to retrieve one Hardison by any means possible because he needed the nutrition in Eliot’s own words. Additionally one Sophie at Eliot’s behest that she ought not to be excluded right now however if she declined to respect that and let him know so he could make a plate for her.

She goes to Sophie first because she just came back and it seems right to see her first.

“So I went to go see Eliot and he started to make food, so he wanted me to ask you if you were hungry?”

Sophie’s eyes fall on her, the same way they sweep over a mark that’s being contrary to the information provided and she’s adapting on the fly seamlessly as the master grifter she is. “You went to go see Eliot?”

“Yes?” Parker feels like there’s a trick question here. “I like Eliot?”

“Hmm, I would have thought Hardison.”

“I like Hardison, too.” 

“Of course you do.” Sophie pats her gently as if compensation for the confusion she’s caused and gives her a real smile this time though it still seems like she’s sad. “I’m not hungry right now but I’m sure Eliot will put up a plate for me which I will get into later.”

“Yes, he said he would.” Parker parrots back what Eliot told her because that’s often what she goes when she’s thrown for a loop. “I should go bother Hardison.”

“He could use some time away from his computers.” Sophie says thoughtfully, ever aware as they all are that after the debacle that Nate threw them into they weren’t sure what was compromised and not once more. So they had taken up residence in a temporary safe house while they entertained their next move. It didn’t hurt to make sure when Sterling was involved and they all hadn’t had particularly positive interactions with the man.

Parker nods, and creeps up on Hardison intentionally to see him jump. “Woman! You need a better hobby!”

“Eliot made food.”

“Eliot can bring his food down to me.”

“Eliot specified the table.”

“Eliot is free to come down and argue with me himself.”

The banter like this usually falls between Eliot and Hardison so Parker feels a bit out of place trying to know the right phrase to switch this into her favor so she tries something else. Always good to have a plan B. Or in Nate’s case, several plans after A and B when they inevitably fail or aren’t up to his standards.

“I want you there.” Parker gets the words out quietly because she doesn’t often like expressing herself, it makes her feel too exposed and as a thief that is a feeling she is clearly going to be resentful if not fearful of.

That works as Hardison looks less annoyed and focused on her rather than the laptop when he shuts absentmindedly. A clear sign she has won him over. “Alright. I guess I could indulge Eliot just this once for your sake.”

Parker is somewhat disappointed she got what she wanted with words rather than having to resort to some of her antics. “Aw, I thought you wouldn’t be so easy and I would have been able to do something more fun. Eliot says any means necessary.”

Hardison makes a choked noise. “Oh no, you two cannot be teaming up on me! We’re supposed to be a duo, not a trio.”

“Yeah, but if we’re a duo, who will feed us?”

“You do raise a valid point.”

“He can be impatient, so we better go before he starts yelling.” Parker offers, she has a good internal clock so is usually good about noting the passage of time with accuracy.

“The man can yell.” Hardison nods. “So we better. Hope he doesn’t pitch a fight about my orange soda again. Some things are sacred.”

“Orange soda is nice.” Parker agrees. “But I like Eliot’s food too.”


End file.
